A Study in Lullabies
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: Girl!Sherlock/John. When John Watson moved into 221B, it wasn't just with a mad detective. It was with a mad detective and her baby. What on earth was he thinking?
1. Chapter 1

I knew that going to war wasn't going to be a picnic. Of course I knew that, it was called war for a reason, after all. But parts of it, the low moments of training, being in camp with the lads, I made some really good mates, and that's one of the great things about the army. You're forced into camaraderie because you don't want to see anyone's brains turned smeared across the sand, even if it is a bloke you can't stand. You literally become a family. Do you think families like getting together for Christmas? Hell no. Do you think we enjoyed being crammed into a helicopter and sleeping in the sand together? Fuck no, but we did it.

I also knew that coming home from war was going to be horrible. I couldn't wrap my head around how to go from the instincts of a soldier, constantly prepared for anything and everything with a gun at my hip 24/7, to the blithe day-to-day simplicity of a civilian. Suppose that's why I landed with Ella Write-About-Fucking-Everything-It-Will-Honestly-Help-You Thompson. But the funny thing is: how can I write about something that doesn't happen? Nothing happens to me. Ever. Not anymore. I could write about the war, but Ella wants me to acclimatize to civilian life, not dwell on my combative past.

After my weekly appointment with dear Ella - _trust issues? Really?_ - I decided to take the long way home through the park, maybe try to forget about lunch because I couldn't afford it, and instantly regretted the decision when I saw a familiar figure sitting on a park bench a few meters away. He was too near for me to turn around without noticing, and so I quickly faced front and kept walking.

"John?"

Oh, God, not this. Anything but this. I wasn't ready to run into anyone I knew from before the war, not like this, not yet. Not with my leg acting up even though it wasn't injured, not with my shoulder wrecked, malaria draining away my few remaining years of youth before their time, not with my face ten years older than than the rest of me. I was ready for Mike Stamford calling after me in the park. I picked up my pace; perhaps Mike would think he'd been mistaken.

"John Watson!"

_Looks like the game is up, old boy,_ I thought to myself with a minute shake of the head as I stopped, turning to face my old mate. God, he'd gotten fat.

"Stamford, Mike Stamford, we were at Bart's together," greeted the larger man breathlessly, waiting patiently for me to shift the bloody hospital-issue cane from one side to the other before trying to shake my hand.

_Yes, I know who you are, you idiot_, scattered across my mind before I felt ashamed and smiled. I couldn't be so bloody depressing all the time, or no one would speak to me again. "Yes, sorry, yes, Mike, hello." I couldn't even get myself to swallow, it was too hard, trying to look like I was genuinely pleased to run into this boyhood friend.

"I know, I've got fat."

_What to you want me to say to that, you wanker? 'Oh, yes, I did notice you're quite a bit fatter than last time I saw you._ "No..."

Mike continued to grin, though he was beginning to look just as uncomfortable as I felt. Perhaps he was getting the hint. "I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at! What happened?"

I knew my face was contorted into a disapproving frown for at least a moment, but I honestly couldn't help it. How could someone joke about something that very well could have happened? Then again, it was probably a lot easier for someone on the other side of the war to forget things like that. "I got shot," I explained, probably a bit too bluntly, going by the look on Mike's face.

We had coffee, of course, because that was what old friends did when they bumped into each other. It was unbearable, being stuck in time like this, how did people manage it? I felt like my skin was vibrating with the ardent desire to get the hell away from there as quickly as possible. The bench hurt my leg. The leg that wasn't supposed to hurt.

I laughed at something Mike said, but wasn't sure why it had been funny. What had I even asked him?

"So, you staying in town until you get everything sorted?" asked Mike politely. The typical small-talk.

"Can't afford London on an army pension," I shrugged.

"Ah, you couldn't bear to be anywhere else," goaded Mike teasingly. "That's not the John Watson I know!"

_I was a Captain for Her Majesty's Royal Army once, and now I'm sitting here with you, having coffee, half the man I used to be. One shoulder, one leg. What else did I leave behind? A lung? A kidney? Half my heart? I've killed more people you can fucking count, and you have the gall to think you know me._

Instead I said, "I'm not that John Watson." Alright, perhaps I snarled it, but it was better than bashing Mike over the head with my cane. I flexed my hand and laughed at the idea of Harry's help that Mike suggested. Yes, I would turn to my irresponsible alcoholic soon-to-be divorcee of a sister for help with money. Then Mike suggested a flatmate, and that was even funnier, though I didn't laugh. "Come on, who'd want me for a flatmate?"

It was, apparently, Mike's turn to laugh now. "You're the second person to say that to me today."

Alright, that had me slightly intrigued. "Who was the first?"

God bless Mike Stamford.

On the way to Bart's he gave very little information on what, exactly, we were doing, but I was feeling a bit better with the chance of something interesting finally happening and went along with it. The building was comfortably familiar, all straight lines and clean angles in reliable shades of white and teal. I touched a wall and felt the coolness of the painted brick sing through my skin.

There was already someone in the lab when they got there Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a shallow man, but this was a downright gorgeous woman, with gracefully-curled black hair tied back at the base of her skull and an impeccable suit. I wanted to know her name. I wanted to know her name _yesterday_. "Mike, can I borrow your phone?" she asked in a voice that was rather low for a woman, but not masculine. It vibrated in my chest and made me feel alive with the possibility of something strange and entirely new.

"What's wrong with the landline?" replied Mike, sounding more fond than annoyed.

Without looking up from her work, the woman drawled back, "I prefer to text."

Mike shrugged as I watched on, a simple observer. So easily forgotten. "Well, I left it in my coat, sorry."

Her shoulders drooped the smallest fraction of an inch, but otherwise made no visible reaction. Dark lashes cast long shadows on her cheek as she looked down at her work, and I suddenly found myself fishing in my trouser pocket. "Here, use mine," I offered blindly, holding out the mobile to her. She turned, looking mildly surprised, but thanked me in that low voice. Her eyes were shockingly light gray.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" she asked as she bowed over the mobile.

A jolt went through my system. I had the distinct feeling that something was about to happen.

"Yeah, she's always like that," chuckled Mike once the woman - Sherlock Holmes - had swept out the door. But not before completely bowling me over. She rattled off a million things about me that I couldn't conceive how she'd known. Was she some sort of psychic, I wondered? But then realized that that was ridiculous and dismissed the thought immediately.

Still blinking rather fast in the wake of what I would probably forever call Hurricane Holmes, I cleared my throat. "So, you know her rather well, then?" I asked, trying to keep the hopeful strain from my voice. I really couldn't help it, and it seemed my old friend was taking pity on me.

"Sorry mate," answered Mike apologetically, "she's not looking for anything like that. Actually, wait, she didn't mention, did she?"

"Mention what?" I asked, feeling my heart drop apprehensively.

"Well, er...she's got a kid. A baby, actually, just a few weeks old, his name's Benjamin, after Ben Franklin, innit a laugh? Pretty sure it was meant to be a joke but she liked the name so much it stuck; I think I've got a picture of him in - oh, right, in my phone... John? Where are you going?"

At the time, I had no idea what possessed me to go to Baker Street after finding out Sherlock had a baby. Babies are loud, and messy, and take up a lot of space. It's not as if I was a rabid baby-person, either. Oh, God, I was probably going to end up babysitting the thing if I didn't get a job, too. Next I knew he would be as Tesco buying nappies and formula like a doting husband, except the wife and baby weren't mine.

And yet at the same time, I couldn't help wondering why Sherlock had told me about her violin, or the not talking for days on end, but not about her baby, which would obviously be something a bit more important for a potential flatmate to know.

"Potential flatmates ought to know the worst about one another, after all," she'd said.

Then it struck me that Sherlock was being clever, or at least cleverer than me. She'd pointed out the worst of herself, and a baby certainly wasn't what one would consider to be a bad characteristic. It had seemed almost sweet in hindsight, and so I supposed that was why I went to 221B. It was different, and would be a bit weird, sure, but wasn't that exactly what I was looking for after facing the inanity of normal life?

Sherlock pulled up in a cab just as I made for the front door, climbing gracefully from the back seat and somehow attracting my attention even when my back was turned. "Miss Holmes," I greeted, then instantly wondered if that was the proper article to use with her and if she would be offended. Too late now, I supposed, and extended a hand.

"Just Sherlock, please," she dismissed politely, smiling and shaking my hand before knocking on the door. We discussed the niceties about the location of the building; she gave a little self-satisfied smirk as I mentioned how expensive it must be. "Oh, the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, she's giving me a special deal. She's fond of me. A few years ago her husband was on Death Row in Florida, and I was able to help out."

"You stopped her husband being executed?"

Her eyes were laughing at me, but at least it gave them a pleasant shine. "Oh no, John. I ensured it."

Before I could muster a response I was spared by the door swinging open, an elderly lady with an impossibly tiny baby in her arms beaming as Sherlock wrapped the both of them in a hug. "Sherlock," she cooed as the younger woman pulled the baby to her own chest.

"Mrs. Hudson, Doctor John Watson," she introduced briefly before leading the way into the house, bouncing the infant in her arms. I smiled politely at the landlady before following Sherlock inside, being mindful not to trip myself up in the door with my cane. Even with a baby in her arms she was bounding up the stairs faster than I could. My leg started to shake as I hobbled up the seventeen steps to the flat, threatening to give out as I tried to keep up with my mysterious potential flatmate. I mentally snarled at the uncooperative limb, and for the time being it let up a bit.

"So, is this Benjamin?" I asked, helping Sherlock shimmy one-armed out of her coat. She stared at me as though I'd grown a second head. My face heated up slightly. "You know. Your son? Mike said you named him after Ben Franklin."

Sherlock rolled her eyes good-naturedly and shifted the sleeping baby higher in her arms. Lord, he was still pink and wrinkly like new. "That was a joke. His name is Alexander," she corrected primly.

"Like Alexander the Great?"

"Who?"

"I..." honestly didn't know what to say to that. Maybe it was too obscure for the moment, but that was unimportant anyway. "Never mind." I looked around the flat for the first time, not exactly relishing the idea of clearing out all the rubbish, but taking a liking to it regardless. It was small but homey, with unusual wallpaper and a nice fireplace. "So, this place looks like it could be very nice. It could be very nice indeed."

I turned the corner to look in the kitchen, Sherlock roving over to stand beside me at the same time, smirking as she studiously avoided looking at me. "Yes, my thoughts exactly," she breezily agreed as the baby began to cough and gurgle in the crook of her elbow. Gray eyes wide, she hitched him up to her shoulder and rubbed his back. Alexander's wrinkled little eyes squinted at me over his mum's shoulder, and I momentarily forgot what I was talking about.

"So I went ahead and moved in."

"As soon as we get all this rubbish cleared-"

Sherlock stiffened slightly, now definitely looking away from me as I sort of rounded on her in shock. How could one little woman (as tall as me) possess to much mess? "Well, I mean, of course I can clean..." she quickly amended, placing the baby in a crib I hadn't even seen tucked into the corner of the sitting room and beginning to shuffle papers around. She tossed a stack of files into a box, floundered over where the box should go, grabbed a smaller stack of envelopes and documents and stabbed them into the mantle with a letter opener. It was really rather adorable, watching her icy composure slip for the first time.

Now I'm not going to pretend that Sherlock herself was by any means _adorable_. She'd really sort of skeeved me out by rattling off "I know you're an army doctor, recently invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother who's concerned about you, but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him (possibly because he's an alcoholic; more likely because he recently walked out on his wife) and I know your therapist thinks your limp's at least partially psychosomatic (quite correctly, I'm afraid). Enough to be going on with, don't you think? The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street. Afternoon!" She was all straight lines and hard angles (except for the lingering softness of a new mother still clinging to her midsection), expensive tailored suits, and reeking of pure genius. What could ever be adorable about her, I had no idea. Not at the time, at least.

But the fact that she wasn't one of those typical flirts who spent all of their time trying to be precious and twee was partially what drew me to her in the first place. She is nothing more than purely herself, more than admirable in the day and age.

"I looked you up on the internet last night," I blurted out, then felt my face turn bright red. That had not come out at all in the way I'd intended it to. I'd meant to sound spontaneous and casual, but had come out sounding more like I'd just announced I spent the night before outside her bedroom window. I hastily added, "I found your website, The Science of Deduction?"

She turned to me with a pleased smile. "What did you think?" she asked, hands tucked into her pockets.

I shot her a disapproving look; her eyebrows furrowed inquiringly.

"Oh, Sherlock, the mess you've made," twittered Mrs. Hudson as she fluttered about the kitchen. Of course, the chemical equipment was hers. Goodness, what did this wild woman do for a living? She didn't seem like a doctor, even though she'd been in Bart's. Perhaps a chemist? Probably something in science at the very least. "There's another bedroom upstairs, if you'll be needing two, that is..."

I froze, feeling my face flush while Sherlock merely rolled her eyes. "Of course we'll need two," I insisted a bit too loudly, "why wouldn't we need two bedrooms?"

Mrs. Hudson smiled knowingly. "Oh, it's alright dears, no need to hide from little old me!" she giggled. I sat myself in the nearest chair, appropriating a Union Jack cushion. "What about these serial suicides then?" the landlady continued when I refused to add more to that ludicrous conversation. "Seems like it'd be right up your alley, dear. Three in a row, what a pity..."

"Four," supplemented Sherlock from where she'd migrated to the window. I looked up and my god, she cut an impressive figure with the shadows cast across her face. Blue and red lights started flickering outside. "There's been a fourth."

Before I could wrap my head around what exactly she'd said, an older man with salt-and-pepper hair appeared in the door, smiling sheepishly. "'Lo, Sherlock," he greeted, "I heard the tyke was out of hospital, thought I'd bring round a card from the lads." He held out a blue envelope and, with a smile that seemed to contort her somber face into something harsh, Sherlock took it.

"Oh, look at that!" she exclaimed in a voice entirely not her own, tearing the envelope into eight neat little pieces and flinging them out the window. Alright, that seemed a bit harsh, but who am I to judge when just the day before I was fighting the urge to clock Mike Stamford? She cocked out her elbows, hands on hips. "Come on Lestrade, why are you really here?"

The man named Lestrade's smile only faltered for a second before he valiantly fought to put it back. "Alright," he admitted, dropping the act moments after he'd managed it. "I need some advice, _advice only, Sherlock_." His voice hardened on the tail end of the sentence, as though he could see the cogs turning in Sherlock's brilliant mind.

Her corny smile melted into something much more smug and domineering. "What's different about this one, Lestrade? Why do you need my 'advice'? I already know there's been another suicide, and I know there's something different or you wouldn't be here, so what is it?" she asked in a low voice. If I'd known better it would almost seem seductive, but then again, at the time I really didn't know better, and did think it was seductive.

"This one left a note," admitted Lestrade with almost a pained look on his face.

Sherlock looked radiant. "I'll follow behind in a cab!" she announced.

"Sherlock-"

"Lestrade-"

"You've just had a baby!" snapped the older man. "I'm not going to let you go running around crime scenes when you should be with your son."

"But Lestrade," purred the woman as she crossed her arms, "you_ need_ me."

I watched Lestrade shift from foot-to-foot before crumbling. "God help me, I do. But I'm putting Anderson on forensics just for your cheek." Ignoring Sherlock's pouting, Lestrade nodded politely at Mrs. Hudson and me before trotting back down the stairs.

Sherlock turned imperiously back toward the window and stared out until it was obvious that Lestrade had gone. Then she literally _jumped for joy_, a broad grin spreading across the sharp planes of her face in the exact opposite of the way she'd done before. This delight was real. "Yes! Four serial suicides and now a note! Oh, it's Christmas!" she jubilantly cried, spinning a circle and clapping her hands. "Mrs. Hudson, you'll watch Alex? Please, please, please will you watch him for just a few hours? John, make yourself comfortable, have a cup of tea, don't wait up!" Before waiting for a reply from the landlady Sherlock had bounded out of the room with a whoop of joy. A bona fide whoop of childish glee.

I didn't know whether to be frightened or impressed. Either way, I was feeling a bit jealous at the same time. No damn limp slowing her down, no rotten shoulder to be taken into consideration, certainly no war nightmares to keep her up half the night. Perhaps I should have reconsidered moving into a flat with someone who had a great amount of potential to make me feel sorry for myself. Perhaps after shouting at poor sweet Mrs. Hudson over my damn bloody leg I should have made the proper excuses and never come back. But I apologized, and stayed in my- the chair, and picked up a newspaper. Lestrade's - DI Lestrade's - face stared back at me.

"You're an army doctor."

Jumping with surprise, I pivoted in my- the chair before getting right out of it to face Sherlock as she wound her scarf round her neck. "Yep."

"Any good?" she drawled next. It whispered like a challenge in my veins.

"Very."

She blinked, a slow smirk forming at the edges of her soft lips. "Seen a lot of violent deaths, a lot of action?" she continued, practically goading me, and Christ, I should have seen it coming but didn't have the foresight back then.

"Yes, of course. Too much. Enough to last me a lifetime," I recited as if the words themselves were knives in my throat. That was what I was supposed to think, at least. No one was meant to enjoy warfare.

One sharp black eyebrow quirked challengingly. "Want to see some more?"

"Oh, God, yes."

And we were off, Sherlock kissing Mrs. Hudson on the cheek and handing her a baby monitor before dashing out the door with a cry of "Ah, yes, Sherlock Holmes is back in the game!" and a flap of her coattails.


	2. Chapter 2

Once we were in the cab, I wasn't quite certain of what to say. I just sort of...sat, glancing over at Sherlock every once in a while. She caught me at it a few times, making me blush like a schoolboy, before finally sighing, "Alright, you have questions," as though the thought brought her real pain.

Of course I had questions. This woman had literally just swept me off my feet into a taxi going god-knows-where in pursuit of possible danger and violent death. "Where are we going?" I asked first, deciding to start small and work my way up.

"Crime scene," bristled my companion. "Next."

"Who are you? What do you do?"

"Want to wager a guess?" she asked, and her smirk was just so..._something_ I couldn't define that soon after meeting her that it made me really properly annoyed. Still I shoved that down for the time being.

"I'd say private detective, but..."

"But?"

Gods, she was talking to me like a child. Looking back I realize that, though fonder do some memories become with time, that one has always been a bit foul. "But, well, the police don't go to private detectives," I concluded lamely.

"I'm a consulting detective, only one in the world, I invented the job," supplied Sherlock in a level voice.

"What does that mean?"

"It means when the police are out of their depth - which is always - they consult me."

I couldn't help a bit of an indulgent grin. "The police don't consult amateurs."

I'm lucky to be alive, I'll tell you that, with the glare Sherlock sent me, because that was a glare of _daggers_. Luckily, she seemed not to be much into physical violence, and instead flayed me with her tongue. And trust me, I don't mean that in the fun way _at all_.

"When I met you for the first time yesterday, and I said 'Afghanistan or Iraq?' you looked surprised. I didn't know, I saw. Haircut and the way you hold yourself says military. The conversation as you walked in said trained at Bart's. So, army doctor. Obvious. Your face is tanned, but no tan above the wrists; you wouldn't get that sunbathing. Your limp's really bad when you walk but you don't ask for a chair when you stand, like you've forgotten about it, which means at least partially psychosomatic. That says the unusual circumstances of the injury were traumatic: wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan, Afghanistan or Iraq?"

To this very day, I have no idea how one even begins training the eye to catch things in the way Sherlock's can, but I was both highly offended and heartily impressed by the skill she'd obviously been working on all her life.

"That," I said when she had finished, my voice coming out a bit more roughly than intended; Sherlock stiffened slightly. "Was. Amazing."

Even without looking I could feel the quiet surprise on her face. "Was it?" she asked in a voice completely different from the one she'd used to rip me apart. It almost made me feel a bit - what, sad? - for her, not knowing just how incredible she was, because it just happened to be overshadowed by an arrogance that made everyone hate her. Of course, I wouldn't know just how much everyone hated her for a good twenty minutes or so, and so simply basked in her brilliance.

"It was extraordinary," I insisted, wanting that flattered surprise to remain in her voice. "Quite extraordinary."

I could see Sherlock reflection in the cab's window. There was a soft smile tugging the corners of her lips upwards just the barest bit. "That's not what most people say."

"What do most people day?"

"Piss off." And then we laughed, and it felt like I'd known her for all of ten minutes and ten years at the same time.

Another twenty minutes of driving (how on earth did Sherlock afford cabs with a new baby?), we were let out onto a little side street in...actually, at the time, I had no idea we were in Brixton, but anyway, there we were, outside of a house tangled with crime scene tape. I couldn't help correcting Sherlock's assumption that Harry was my sister and not my brother, just to watch her curse. A pretty black woman in a suit to rival Sherlock's glared as the distance closed between them. "What're you doing here, Freak?" she asked, obviously annoyed.

Hello, Sally, I'm here to see DI Lestrade."

"Why?" demanded Sally, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"He invited me," Sherlock sighed, shooting me a pointed glance.

"Why?" Sally repeated.

Sherlock had already ducked under the police tape and was now holding it up for me. "I think he wants me to take a look," she replied in an airy sort of voice, as though she really had no clue what was going on. I could just feel the tension radiating between the two women.

Surely enough, Sally crossed her arms huffily. "Well, you know what I think?"

"Always, Sally," grinned Sherlock, still holding up the police tape. "Even that you didn't make it home last night. Doctor Watson, Sergeant Sally Donovan. Sally, this is my colleague Doctor Watson."

I stepped forward, hoping to have this whole ordeal over with as quickly as possible, but the sergeant pushed down the tape with one poorly-manicured hand. "A colleague?" she asked as if the notion were hilarious. "How do you get a colleague?" She turned to me. "Did she follow you home?"

Fighting not to turn red even as I was discussed in such an abrupt manner between two obviously territorial women, I took a half-step back from the police tape and offered to wait outside, but Sherlock had other plans, yanking the tape up again. I reluctantly ducked under, awkward with me cane, and the now-disgruntled Donovan raised her walkie-talkie to her lips. "Freak's here, bringing her in."

"Why do you let her call you that?" I whispered to Sherlock behind Donovan's back as she led us to the front door. I could tell the younger woman was deliberately slowing her own stride to match mine, and it made me unspeakably annoyed.

As I stepped in a pothole, pain shot up my leg and I nearly toppled over, but Sherlock grabbed and righted me within two seconds, then went studiously back to ignoring my limp. "Freak's actually rather tame compared to what she used to call me," she shrugged carelessly.

From the house a man in standard blue coveralls and booties approached Sherlock with a scowl already on his face. Judging by Sherlock's nauseated complexion, this had to be the Anderson bloke Lestrade was punishing her with. "It's a crime scene, and I don't want it contaminated; are we clear on that, Freak?"

It was five flights of stairs to reach the tiny room in which Jennifer Wilson was murdered. I stopped in the antechamber to don the same blue bodysuit Anderson had been wearing when Sherlock exposed his affair with Donovan. My so-called colleague appeared to be above such trifle.

Wilson had been a pretty woman, I distinctly recall. A very pretty corpse, shrouded in a "rather shocking shade of pink," as Sherlock had put it with a wrinkle of her delicate nose. That was when I noticed the fine dusting of freckles across the bridge. It was also when I noticed that I tend to make verbal exclamations when very pretty people are busy being brilliant.

"Did you know you do that out loud?" Sherlock asked under her voice, even though Lestrade could hear every word.

I blushed like a Victorian heroine. "Sorry, I'll shut up."

Sherlock's mouth quirked in the corner again. "No," she said cautiously, "it's fine."

She called me up to do my bit, which was apparently just to annoy the entire team of medical inspectors downstairs, and then dashed out. If Lestrade hadn't been shouting after her I probably wouldn't even have noticed she was gone. As it were, I was in no shape to go bounding after the world's only consulting detective; I just desperately hoped she would wait for me.

Naturally, the street was empty save the few cars, Donovan, and Anderson. The couple were muttering darkly to one another, something about, "was better when she was on drugs, I tell you..."

"Excuse me?" I asked, trying to be polite whenever I was around someone who could arrest me. "Has...Sherlock Holmes...?" I stammered, feelings my spirits plummet when Donovan smirked.

"She's gone," she informed me, eyeing me with unrestrained disgruntlement and pity. It was the latter the grated on my very bones. "She does that."

They gave me directions to the main road, and I took off with as much dignity as I could muster. There wasn't much there, not when I was cold and abandoned in Brixton by the "colleague" I was supposed to be considering as a flatmate. I didn't even notice the phones ringing coincidentally just as I passed, stopping when I was gone.

When the black car pulled up, now to me a familiar part of life, I was at the time obviously very apprehensive about getting in. Then a beautiful woman stepped out, and I felt a bit better.

When I was dropped off in an abandoned warehouse and confronted by a posh bloke with an umbrella, I was significantly less at ease. He was dressed too well to be about to rough me up, but I kept my guard up regardless. Every muscle in my body was still and relaxed, conserving energy in the event of action, and he bloody well noticed. And he had Ella's notes. Christ, who was this goony?

"An interested party," explained the villain smoothly. His oily voice was beginning to annoy me. "She has a young son, you see. Just a wee baby."

Instantly, every muscle in my body tensed. "What of it?" I asked through a tight throat.

The man shifted his umbrella and sighed. "He was born a month early, you see. I believe the common term is a preemie? Had to stay in hospital for three weeks; Sherlock only took him home the day before she met you, Doctor Watson. It would just be such a pity if anything happened to the poor little thing."

When I had been returned to Baker Street, nearly two hours later and with my gun after a stop at the halfway house, I could almost forgive Sherlock for leaving me. Not only the encounter with Sherlock's arch enemy but the possibility of danger singing in my blood was leaving me something close to elated, though I hid it well. Integrated citizens didn't usually like the idea of holding a gun to visit potential flatmates. I did, however, want to check on Alexander as soon as I could.

Sherlock was sprawled across the sofa when I step-step-thunked up, Alexander wriggling safely on her belly as she pressed a mysterious something into the crook of her arm. I suddenly recalled Anderson and Donovan's conversation at the crime scene with skepticism and asked: "What are you doing?"

Her eyes snapped open and she turned her head to face me, left-handed fingers tangled in her son's hands. She craned her occupied arm to expose it to me, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course she wasn't a junkie. "Nicotine patch. It's impossible to support a smoking habit in London. Bad news for brainwork. Give me a hand?" She was trying to sit up without jostling the baby, but couldn't seem to manage it.

And so it begins, I thought as I carefully scooped Alexander up against my chest. "Yeah, but good news for breathing." I glanced down at the baby's red wrinkled face and fought a chuckle at how serious he looked.

"Breathing," scoffed the detective as she sat up and stretched, rubbing the dark circles under her eyes. "Breathing's boring. Can I borrow your phone?"

Fighting a sigh, I shifted Alex to my good arm and started digging in my pockets, tossing my phone at Sherlock before moving to look out the window. "I just met a friend of yours," I told her as Alex started gumming my fingers.

"A friend?" She sounded scandalized at the very idea.

"An enemy," I altered. Alex started to whimper from all the jostling.

She seemed to find that more acceptable. "Oh. Which one?"

I forgot to answer for several moments, as Alexander's whimpers of discomfort grew into lusty cries. "Er, your arch one?" I offered, trying to bounce the bawling infant the same way I had seen Sherlock do earlier. "Can you...?"

Without letting me finish, Sherlock snatched her son from my arms and leaned toward me, every line on her face etched in seriousness. "Did he offer you money to spy on me?" she asked in a dangerously low voice, low enough to make me shiver both from fear and something else entirely. We were suddenly trapped, wrapped up in this little bubble of mystery and intrigue, all alone. I nodded, too stunned to try speaking over Alex's shrieks. "Did you take it?"

"No!"

She sighed and closed her eyes, as though disappointed, and the illusion was broken. "Pity, we could have split the fee; think it through next time."

"Who is he?"

Tossing the phone back at me (I just barely managed to catch it, heart leaping with fear that I would bust it), Sherlock trotted to the kitchen and rummaged in the fridge. "The most dangerous man you'll ever meet and not my problem right now. I need you to send a text for me, to the number on the desk. Have you got it? Send 'What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out. 221 Northumberland Street, please come."

As I started typing the message, stumbling over the keys with lack of practice, it took me a moment to notice the message Sherlock was asking me to send for her. "Hold on, you blacked out? What happened? Are you okay?"

"No, John, focus!" called Sherlock. I could hear her fumbling with something plastic in the microwave; formula bottles? "Are you doing it?"

_What happened at Lauriston Gdns? I must have blacked out._

"Have you done it?"

"I-wh-hang on! What was the address?"

"22 North_um_berland Street! Hurry up!" There was a sharpness lingering around the edges now. Oh goody, she was getting impatient with me.

_22 Northumberland St. Please come._

I snapped the mobile shut just as Sherlock started to stir the formula one-handed, shushing Alex with a fiercely concentrated look on her face. I had to admit, I admired single mothers a bit more just watching her fumble with the rubber nipple while her son continued to squirm and fuss in the crook of her arm. It takes a whole different kind of bravery to go that sort journey alone. She settled into her task with all the gravity of an undertaker. I turned away, my job apparently finished, and saw lying innocently on the floor a pink overnight case. A rather shocking shade of pink, it was.

Before my first thoughts could be spoken, I felt Sherlock's presence just behind me. "Perhaps I should tell you I'm _not_ the murderer," she admitted in a low voice, eyes trained on her son's far as he gulped at the formula, somehow managing to give two separate tasks one hundred percent focus at the same time. Even as she took the time to explain bow she'd tracked down Jennifer Wilson's case, despite it having probably been very impressive, she kept her voice down low and never tore those bright gray eyes away from her son's face. His similarly-colored eyes were wide open, staring alternatively from his mum to the rest of the flat as he suckled the bottle. It would have almost been touching, if she weren't talking to me like an overactive two-year-old.

"Why didn't _I_ think of that?" I couldn't help asking once she'd explained the murderer's mistake, pink cases, and several possible skip-dives.

"Because you're an idiot," she replied, stroking a small tuft of wild hair from Alex's face. I raised my eyebrows, feeling an instant flash of irritation, and she scoffed without looking up. "Oh, don't look like that, nearly everyone is."

Well, that made me feel _loads_ better. "Everyone but you?" I snapped, trying to wave a judgmental hand at her, but it was my bloody left and I accidentally wound up pointing right at Alexander.

My blood ran cold, mind alive with hospital documentaries about mother bears when their cub is threatened, as Sherlock preceptively shifted in her seat. "I didn't mean _that_," I amended as quickly as I could. "I meant to just wave; I have a bad arm and - and a tremor, and..." I didn't know how to end that sentence, so trailed off miserably. Even if I had been reconsidering earlier, I keenly felt the loss of this cosy little flat from which I was probably about to be thrown.

Instead of throwing me out (somewhat miraculous in and of itself, I would later learn), Sherlock turned on her heel and stomped into the other room, slamming the door loudly enough to make Alex start bawling again. I sat silently in my chair for an interminable length of time, wondering if I was still welcome in Sherlock's flat but not caring enough to excuse myself. If Sherlock didn't want to share a flat with me anymore because of a stupid mistake then she could say it to my face.

Just as the thought occurred to me the bedroom door swung open and she emerged, decked out in coat and scarf, Alexander bundled in one arm - she was still trying to comfort him after the shock of slamming the door - and the handle of a collapsible pram hooked around the other as she dragged it into the room. "We're going out," she announced while I tried to figure out how she got her coat, when I could have sworn up and down that I'd seen it hanging by the front door. "I'm thinking Italian. Hungry?" One of those delectable eyebrows twitched when I was probably gaping like an idiot at her. "You apologized, John. Now come on, we have work to do." And she was off, handing me the pram to juggle with my cane down the stairs. It was relatively easy to lug, limp considered, but the task of unfolding it baffled me. I probably looked a real ponce, grabbing the frame in all the wrong places and shaking the blasted thing in vain, until Sherlock took a twisted sort of pity on me and handed me the screaming baby to take over.

"Why does it have such big wheels?" I asked, wrapping the strap of my cane round one wrist to hitch Alex up to my shoulder and pat his bottom. His tiny mitten-covered hand batted me in the ear, but at least his shrieks started hiccuping.

Straightening from the impeccably-assembled pram, Sherlock replied, "It's for jogging. It's got shock-absorbers so it won't jostle."

"Ah," I nodded without really taking in the information, too preoccupied by Alex's sudden upsurge in pitch and volume. "Is he hungry, you think?"

She shook her head, leaning over Alex with an intensely focused look on her face. "I just fed him while we were talking upstairs."

"Nappy, maybe?" I continued, still patting Alex's bottom.

"I checked before I wrapped him up," dismissed the detective a bit waspishly. "What about-?"

We both paused at a small, particularly liquid-sounding hiccup that broke through Alex's crying. I felt something dribble down the back of my jacket. Sherlock barely suppressed a snort. Brilliant.

"I'll just strap him in and we'll be on our way, then," grinned Sherlock as she pulled the calming baby from my shoulder and secured him in the basket of the pram.

I craned my neck, trying to survey the damage done to probably the only jacket I'd be able to afford for quite a while, but faced front when it made my shoulder ache and carried on.


	3. Chapter 3

Angelo's, though settled in an area that had been one of my frequent haunts as a youth, was completely unfamiliar as Sherlock led the way in and was instantly seated. The owner came rushing over to hand us menus and fawn over my companion and her sprout.

"This is Angelo. Angelo, Doctor John Watson," she introduced, looking the nearest to shy I'd seen so far.

The large man turned to me and beamed while grasping Sherlock by her tiny shoulders. "This girl, this brilliant beautiful girl, got me off a murder charge!"

Sherlock actually blushed, smiling sheepishly as she loosened some of the bundling around Alex and scooted the pram closer to the table. "About three years ago, I helped prove that at the time of the murder he was on the other side of London, house-breaking."

"She cleared my name."

"I cleared it a bit," shrugged Sherlock, but she was smiling softly as Angelo brazenly lifted Alexander from his pram.

"Look at you!" he cooed to Alex like a proud grandfather, tapping the infant's button nose with one stubby finger. "He is beautiful, Sherlock. Just beautiful." He turned a watchful eye on the detective. "He's alright now, is he? Out of the woods?" he asked.

Sherlock nodded earnestly. "Everything's fine now." She was subjected to another squeeze of the shoulder before Angelo replaced Alex to his pram and grinned warmly at us.

"Well, Sherlock, you know the drill. Anything you'd like, my treat, for you and your date."

It was the first time I'd been addressed even second-handedly by the owner of the restaurant, and I jumped to attention. "I'm not her date," I insisted, embarrassed.

Angelo didn't seem to hear me. "It's so nice to see you up and about again, sweetheart," he said fondly to Sherlock. "I'll just go fetch a candle for the table; it's more romantic."

"I-I'm not her date!" I called after him, but he was already gone.

Sherlock looked indulgently after Angelo for a few moments before turning to stare out the window, setting her menu briskly aside. "You might as well eat; we could be here a while."

I turned down to look at my menu for a few moments, before the pointedness of how she ignored hers was too glaring in my face. "Aren't you eating?" I asked.

She looked thoughtful. "What day is it?"

Er... "Wednesday."

"I'm fine for a few more days, then," decided Sherlock.

I was close to dropping my water glass, but didn't say anything until after Angelo had placed a candle on the table and taken my order. "Sherlock, you need to eat," I said in my best doctor-voice. God, I probably sounded like a mother hen, but I can't help it sometimes. "Besides, don't you have to consider... you know...?" She narrowed her eyes, bewildered. I lowered my voice even further. "Aren't you, y'know, breast-feeding?" I felt my skin burn all the way from forehead to chest, despite my usual ability to form medical detachment to things like this.

Sherlock, however, wasn't even phased. "No, I'm not allowed, for a least another month," she said breezily. "Besides that, Alex was in the hospital so long after me that I've dried up."

Alright, that was definitely near the bottom of the list of things I needed to know about my flatmate on day one, but I had asked, hadn't I?

Angelo brought the food a few minutes later despite the dinner crowd, giving me the impression he'd pushed the order up. Ordinarily I'd feel a bit guilty, but I was hungry. He even brought Sherlock a small bowl of buttered noodles, guiding a fork into her hand and giving her a stern, fatherly glare before moving on to other tables. Good man.

"You know, people don't usually have arch enemies," I pointed out after probably ten minutes of silence. Oh, god, the silence stretched on, not nearly as long as it felt like, but it was uncomfortable. "In real life, it doesn't usually happen."

"Doesn't it?" asked Sherlock, still staring out the window with one hand in the pram, letting Alex squeeze her fingers. "That seems dull. What do real people have then in their _real_ lives?"

"Friends," I said immediately. "People you like, people you don't like, girlfriends, boyfriends..." She narrowed her eyes at me.

"As I said, dull."

"So, you got a boyfriend to, you know, feed you up and whatnot? When you don't eat?" Ugh. I'm an idiot.

"Is that what boyfriends do?" asked Sherlock with amusement dancing in her eyes before she did a flawless impression of me. "They 'feed you up'?" I shrugged, wanting nothing more than to spill my feelings into some food. She made a skeptical sort of face. "Boyfriends, no, not really my area."

Blinking and a bit confused, I looked significantly at Alexander.

"Oh, do use your imagination, John. I don't even know what Alexander's father looks like."

I nodded, wanting very badly for this conversation to be over, but my curiosity got the better of me. A smart, pretty young woman, with a new baby whose father is pointedly anonymous. "Oh. So...do you have a girlfriend?"

Her eyes narrowed again, and I quickly backpedaled.

"Which is fine! by the way-"

"I know it's fine," she countered immediately.

I shut my eyes and tried not to panic at the political turn this conversation was taking. "I just mean...you know, it's fine, it's good, you're unattached...like me. Right. Good." Apparently it was see-how-many-times-you-can-embarrass-yourself day. I took a nervous bite of food as Sherlock looked from the window to Alex (staring around the restaurant) to me again in minute glances.

"John, I want you to know that I think of myself married to my work, and at the moment my son is my main priority. Flattered as I am by your interest, I must-"

"No!" I choked, nearly inhaling a bit of pasta. "No, I just mean it...it's all fine. Whatever shakes your...boat I'll shut up now."

Though she still looked skeptical, Sherlock turned back to the window without any more arguments.

"What exactly are we looking at?" I asked after a few more moments' silence, turning to look in the same direction as her.

"22 Northumberland Street," she nodded in a pointed 'it's about time you asked' tone. "Whoever had he case now has the phone. Whoever has the phone has somehow been luring in his victims. But how? Who hunts in the middle of a crowd, who has the look of innocence strong enough for people to trust, but the ability to make them poison themselves?" It seemed she was talking more to herself than me.

Still it seemed I should at least ask enough questions for her to puzzle it out on her own. "Who?"

She smiled. It was a predatory thing. "I have no idea."

Just then a cab pulled into the empty lot and turned it's light out.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock murmured to the cab through the plate-glass window. "Why are you just sitting there?" The puzzle seemed to legitimately offend her.

"Maybe he's waiting to pick someone up?" I offered.

She dismissed it with a sharp shake of her head. Right. The light was out. "Maybe he's off duty?"

Just barely visible, someone in the back seat of the cab turned around and looked ring at us.

"Turn around!" hissed Sherlock, yanking my bad shoulder round to make me face the restaurant. Her eyes were wide and exhilarated. "That's him. That's him!" She was practically giggling. I jerked to alertness. Unlatching the brakes on the pram, she leaped out of her seat. "Come on John, we can get him!"

I jumped from my chair as well, adrenaline already beginning to pound in my veins. "Sherlock, you can't bring Alex! You're chasing a murderer! What if he's dangerous?"

She spread her arms and gaped at me as though the answer were obvious. "I leave Alex with you, and if I die he goes to my brother, alright? Now let's-!"

"What?" I asked sharply, too shocked by how cavalier she was acting to even register what she'd said about her brother. "You'd just leave your kid to grow up without a mum?" Sherlock shifted in place, looking uncomfortable with the conversation, so I continued. "_I'm_ the soldier. If anything happens, you take Alex and _call the police_ while I do what I can to subdue him, are we clear?"

Sherlock pulled another face at me, back at ease. "Fine, take the pram while I lead, then, just hurry!"

She ran out of the restaurant ahead of me, leaving our candle to sputter and Angelo to look sadly at Sherlock's untouched plate. I shrugged helplessly and followed her out, being cautious of the pram despite it's apparent resistance to jostling. Alex was calm as a cucumber, looking around serenely from underneath his romper and wool hat. Sherlock was already in the street, leaping into the air to narrowly escape being flattened by a car. Alex wouldn't have stood a chance, all because his mum had an apparent death-wish. Perhaps it _was_ a good thing for me to take him for now.

I shouted an apology to the driver and started across the street, orienting myself into a steady jog with the raised basket of the pram out of my way. Just as we were crossing the street the cab took off, and Sherlock swore. Before it could turn the corner I took note of he number, but Sherlock had other plans. She hunched over, hands pressed to temples, muttering directions and street names to herself, then shouted, "This way!"

And then we ran. It was mad, completely mad, running after the world's only consulting detective, pushing her baby in a pram that didn't so much bounce as float on its supports, while the baby drooled and possibly even dozed. What a pair Sherlock and I must have looked, her careening like a rocket down side streets and up fire escapes, me running as quickly as I dared behind a pram and taking directions shouted during jumps across rooftops.

It went on for what felt like forever, through a veritable labyrinth of London side streets and alleys. Several times I caught fleeting glimpses of the elusive cab just before it turned a corner or shot past the alley I was halfway down; Sherlock wasn't disheartened for a moment of it. Then, far ahead, I heard the screech of tires, the thud of something on the roof of a car, and felt my breath freeze in my throat. Oh no. Oh, no no no no please god let her be alright...

The air rushed from my lungs in a relieved sigh. Sherlock was bent nearly double over the hood of the cab, gasping for air - reminding me for the first time since that afternoon that she had just had a baby not three weeks ago - but miraculously alright.

"Police!" she screeched through a throat raw with panting. "Police, open up!"

Never before in my life had I ever seen eyes so bright as those of Sherlock Holmes, shining with triumph even when I caught up and made her go through with our arrangement. She stepped back, leaning against the boot of the cab with white hands held loose around the pram's handle. I whipped the back door open and placed a hand on the gun tucked into my belt, ready to take evasive action if the need arose.

"Can I help you?" asked the well-polished man with the flat tones of an American accent.

Sherlock made a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob, stepping away long enough to get a look at our potential murderer. "It's the wrong cab," she wheezed. "It's not him. He's just got here from California bloody hell!" She laughed again, but it carried a sharp edge to it that was slightly disconcerting. She looked very pale and had a hand mock-casually resting against her stomach. I worried that she was ill as we dismissed the cab and went on our way.

When I tried to ask how she was feeling, she smirked and spoke before I was able to. "Welcome to London, eh?"

It was, sadly, enough to deter me for the time being. It was my first taste of the battlefield since Afghanistan, and it was like waking up from a long, boring dream. All I wanted was more, and to have it with this incredible, insane woman. For the first time since blood-stained deserts, since hospitals stinking of malaria and bad dreams. I was lightyears above and beyond Ella Thompson and her skewed perspective of our little cookie-cutter society. I laughed and agreed and forgot everything I should have been asking.

I could have died at that moment, and gone a happy man.

Sherlock, however, had other plans. Having dropped briefly to her knees to check on Alex (sleeping. The little bugger was sleeping!), she pulled herself to her feet with a small groan, probably of disappointment at a mystery unsolved, gripped the handle of the pram, and turned to me. "Have your breath back yet?"

I grinned so widely it hurt, watching the shine in her bright eyes intensify even then. "Lead on," I insisted happily, and we jogged back to Baker Street. It wasn't until well after we'd both hauled the pram up the stairs and fell against the wall in the foyer that we spoke up again.

"That was the most ridiculous thing I have ever done."

"And you invaded Afghanistan."

We both burst into quiet giggles, suddenly cautious of waking Alex even though he'd been rocked to sleep by a criminal chase halfway across London. Suddenly things were quiet, and god, I remember wanting to kiss her so badly I literally had to dig my heels into the carpet to keep from doing something stupid. Instead I asked, "What are we doing now?" to distract myself.

Sherlock smiled tightly. "Proving a point. Mrs. Hudson! Doctor Watson will take the room upstairs!"


	4. Chapter 4

I couldn't help asking, "Says who?" just to shake things up a bit. I knew even then that I would stand by this woman until the day I died.

As she continued to smirk there was a knock on the door, and on the front stoop stood Angelo with my cane. "Sherlock texted me. Told me you'd forgot this."

I took it and grinned again. My leg was fine. There was not even a hint of pain ghosting through the limb I had had such trouble with earlier in the day. I'd made a psychological breakthrough chasing a non-criminal all over London while pushing a pram. I couldn't wait to tell Ella.

"Sherlock, look what you've done," whimpered the landlady tearfully as she shuffled out of her flat into the hall.

Sherlock stiffened slightly, having been practically sprawled across the wall when I came back from the door. "Mrs. Hudson?" she asked weakly, and then I heard the muffled noises upstairs. Sherlock pushed off the wall to the pram and leaned down to pick Alex up, but after a moment put her hands instead on the edges of the basket and bowed her head. "John," she said softly, and I hurried over, recalling everything I'd seen earlier.

"What's wrong, are you ill?" I asked under my breath, as the landlady was still watching.

She shook her head. I worried she might faint, but couldn't get a good look at her face. "I have reason to think that perhaps I over-exerted myself too soon," she explained in a low voice, so faint I could barely hear her. "I believe it was the fire escape."

Or the rooftops, I wanted to add, but refrained because I was a doctor, and that isn't what doctors do. "What do you need?" Just to be certain, I put a steadying hand on her elbow, and she swallowed stiffly.

"I need help lifting Alex," she said as though every syllable brought her pride a lance of pain, "and...the stairs..."

Considering the fact that I was a surgeon before going into the army, it took my a shamefully long time to put together the puzzle pieces and realize that Sherlock had had a c-section. Lestrade's insistence that she stay off crime scenes, her overeagerness to be back to work, holding onto her stomach like trying to hold her intestines in, how white she turned after overexerting herself. I should have seen it ages ago, but was too wrapped up in my own miraculous recovery that it gave everything a halo effect.

"Mrs. Hudson, can you look after Alex for a few minutes while I settle whatever's going on upstairs?" I asked politely, shooting increasingly concerned looks at Sherlock. As soon as I moved away she sank onto the bottom step, forehead pressed to her knees. Uncertain, the landlady nodded, and I returned to my flatmate's side, kneeling so we were eye to eye. "Sherlock, do you want to wait here while I go upstairs?"

She shook her head. "I have experiments in critical stages; I need to make sure no one tampers with them."

Though I didn't like the idea of her walking up the stairs after so much activity, the fact that she had pushed through pain and discomfort for so long proved her a force to be reckoned with when determined. With one arm around her waist and my other hand around her elbow, we stood together. She yanked her arm free just long enough to clamp her hand around my wrist, and then closed her other around the handrail. We crept slowly up the stairs, both of us aware that I was practically carrying her but not acknowledging it.

The front door of the flat was already open, and inside I could see Detective Inspector Lestrade directing bobbies around. Before I could protest Sherlock had wrenched herself away and into the flat, scowling around at everyone as though nothing was wrong. She could have made a brilliant actress. "What is this?" she spat between clenched teeth, hands on hips.

Looking up as though he and Sherlock were acquaintances running into one another at the park, Lestrade replied: "It's a drugs bust."

I felt my eyebrows shoot up as I trailed in after Sherlock and the conversation continued. Lestrade started in about her experiments and "if we have to do this again a Social Service worker's gonna have to come in and check on things," and I couldn't stand watching Sherlock shrink any longer.

"Hold on, stop," I stepped in. "Sherlock, a junkie? Are you serious?"

"John," she murmured beside me, but he incredulity of the situation was too much and I went on.

"You lot could probably search this flat all day and not find a thing!" I practically laughed.

Off to my left, I saw Anderson and Donovan shared a sour glance.

"John, I suggest you shut up. Now," Sherlock practically growled.

I really couldn't help it. I gaped. "What, you?" I asked. She closed in her gaze on me, sharp and silver as a freshly-polished knife, and suddenly we were the only people in the room. Nothing else mattered, no one else existed, there was nothing outside me and Sherlock Holmes. "No! You?"

She scowled. "Oh, shut up." Then our moment was over, and she was rounding back onto Lestrade. "I'm not your sniffer-dog."

"No, you're not," agreed Lestrade. "Anderson's my sniffer-dog." Around the corner came the man himself, waving at Sherlock with what could only be described as barely-contained glee on his face.

"Anderson, what are you doing on a drugs bust?"

The oily-voiced man glared. "Oh, I volunteered."

"Is this really just a jar of dirt?"

"Put that back!"

"It was in the microwave."

"It's an experiment!" Clearly agitated and definitely not on top-form, Sherlock started pacing the sitting room, fists clenched at her sides. "You're acting childish," she spat at the DI.

"I'm dealing with a child." Lestrade stepped forward and pointed a stern finger at her. "You need to start cooperating, Sherlock. You know that. Last thing we want is to see you go, but this is our case, we are letting you in, and you need to keep us informed of everything you do!"

Sherlock shook her head roughly, pinching the bridge of her long nose. "So what? You bully me with a pretend drugs bust?"

Even I knew it was a dirty move when Lestrade leaned forward and murmured, "It stops being pretend if we find anything. Do you really want that to happen? Think of Alex."

"I'm clean!" she shouted, loud enough for everyone in the flat to flinch.

"I do know you're clean," agreed Lestrade, "but is your flat?"

"Lestrade!"

"Sherlock!"

"For god's sake, I don't even smoke!" the detective roared, yanking up her sleeve to reveal the nicotine patch there.

Lestrade bore his patch too. "Neither do I. We're in he same boat, seems." Sherlock looked like she might pop an artery, and the DI started talking as if there had been no deviance between the case and their argument about Sherlock's apparent past with drugs. "We found Rachel. She's Jennifer Wilson's daughter, her stillborn daughter."

"Funny, innit? We're looking for the missing case, you told us to look for the missing case, and we find it here, in the home of our favorite psychopath."

She turned on Anderson with the icy glare that seemed reserved just for him. "I'm not a psychopath Anderson, I'm a high-functioning sociopath, do your research." She turned back and half-looked at me; I tried to convey in some silent way that she should probably sit down, but Sherlock ignored me and kept thinking. "I don't understand, why would she write her daughter's name in the floor? Why would she do that, why?"

"Yeah," sneered Anderson, "sociopath. Seeing it now."

Seething, Sherlock began to round on him again but stopped, fists clenching on and off at her sides. "She was thinking about it. She was dying. It would have hurt."

And then it clicked. Not for Sherlock, but for me. Of course! I had seen the attempt to cover it up, but when Lestrade had told her to think of Alex, when I had accidentally implied that having Alex was an idiotic mistake, there had been a definite waver in her composure. Jennifer Wilson had been a mother who loved her daughter just as fiercely as Sherlock loved her son.

"You said the victims took the poison themselves," I said slowly, still chewing on the idea in my head. "What if the murderer, I dunno, talked to them? Used the death of her daughter against her?"

"But that was ages ago, why would she still be upset?"

I blinked at Sherlock as everyone in the flat turned toward her ugly words. "You really believe you wouldn't still be upset?" I asked quietly.

There was that small wavering shine again, just for a split second. "Not good?"

"Bit not good, yeah."

The door creaked behind me, and I shuffled aside to let Mrs. Hudson in, hugging Alex to her shoulder. "Isn't the doorbell working? Your taxi's here, Sherlock!"

Sherlock ignored her, turning her attention back to the case at hand. "We nearly had him tonight, Lestrade. Just give us more time and we-"

"Oh, the mess they're making, will it-?"

"-A drugs bust, with a brand new baby, and-"

"-still think she's a psycho-"

"-did you see that over-?"

"_Shut up, everyone, just shut up!_"

Silence fell in the wake of Sherlock's scream.

"Don't move, don't think, don't breathe! Anderson, turn the other way, your face is putting me off!" she instructed at light-speed, shoving out a hand to block the offending mug from her view. At a stern look from Lestrade, Anderson did indeed turn his back, and I couldn't help wondering if that hadn't been purely so Sherlock could get some of her confidence back.

"But Sherlock, I need to take my evening soother, and what about your taxi?" asked Mrs. Hudson, only to be shouted at by the irate consulting detective. I took Alex from her, and she scampered down the stairs.

Sherlock went still, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm down. I could practically see her heart-rate declining, but her eyes were still shining. "Oh," she gasped. "Oh, she was clever! She knew what she was doing! Of course! John, read off the email address on the case tag, quickly."

Sighing to myself, I leaned over the vivid pink case and tugged the tag around. "Er... .uk."

Sherlock talked quickly, hands flying over the keys as she explained the uses of .uk and, after several tense moments, a loading screen came up. "It should lead us right to her killer," she concluded proudly before turning to face the room at large. "You really didn't get that she planted it? Lord, you're all so vacant. Is it nice, not being me? It must be so relaxing."

I barely fought a rather derisive snort. I put Alex in his crib as the computer started pinging, and went to look at the map with Sherlock. "How're you feeling?" I muttered under my breath.

"Brilliant. Irresistible. Amazing. Sexy. What do you think?" she sardonically replied as she studied the map and I studied her. Her lips were nearly bloodless, eyes overbright, and cheeks beginning to flush: not good at all. I opened my mouth to say as much when her brow furrowed and she pointed at the phone's alleged location.

"221B Baker Street?" I said dumbly. "But how could it be here? We texted and he called back."

Even though I had said that the Yarders started looking around the flat for the phone, while I tried to figure out if something was wrong with the website. It seemed fine, far as my limited knowledge could discern. I looked up at Sherlock and saw her standing in the center of the room, eyes unfocused and wide.

"Sherlock? You okay?" I asked carefully, glancing to where she was staring at the empty doorway.

She made a small "hm?" noise and turned her head fractionally toward me, but didn't tear her eyes off the door. "Yes. Yes of course," she vaguely replied. "I'm going to go get some air. Watch Alex for a few minutes, will you? Won't be long."

Shaking my head, I edged over to the window and watched as she teetered unsteadily down the front steps to the building, holding her stomach again. Sherlock spoke with the cabbie Mrs. Hudson thought she'd called for a few minutes, then climbed into the vehicle and vanished down the dark street.

"She's gone," I reported to the room. "Just drove off in a cab."

Sally Donovan shook her head. "She does that. I _told_ you she does that. She's a freak and a junkie and a whore and she'll always let you down. I don't even know why she was allowed to keep her own baby. It's-" She fell silent at the glare Lestrade turned on her, but didn't even have the decency to look ashamed of her ugly words.

"Alright everyone, we're finished here," said the DI resignedly, and the bobbies started packing up without a word. I stared after them as they left, shocked that they didn't find Sherlock's departure in any way odd. Then again, they'd evidently known her longer than I had, and hadn't seen the state she'd been in on the stairs coming up. I wondered for the first time if anyone really knew Sherlock Holmes, or if I had been the first she'd allowed herself to show weakness to.

The flat was empty for ten minutes before the computer started pinging again; I jumped, surprised by the noise, and took a look. The mobile had stopped somewhere near one of London's many colleges, halfway across the city from Baker Street. All I knew for certain was that Sherlock had jumped across rooftops and run a very long distance only three weeks after having major abdominal surgery, and was now in the hands of a dangerous serial killer. That was enough to check my gun was still in the waistband of my jeans and head for the door, grabbing Jennifer Wilson's pinging laptop on the way.

A small gurgling noise stopped me just inside the door to the flat, and my heart plummeted. "Mrs. Hudson, can you watch Alex?" I shouted down the stairs, to no reply. For several moments I jimmied on the spot, arguing that _I could not bring a baby to fight a serial killer!_ But I couldn't just leave him, either, and the more time I wasted deciding this the likelier it would be that Sherlock was going to die. Every moment was precious, and right now I had none to lose.

I ran to the crib in the corner and scooped Alex out; he stared back at me with his mum's same unnerving silver eyes. "Come on, mate, we're going for a ride," I murmured as his warm weight settled against my chest. It took nearly five minutes to track down a car seat, and I also had to bundle Alex up against the January chill, which added another several minutes' struggle. I did, however, find a pair of earmuffs, which I took for Alex on the off-chance that I might have to fire my gun.

Fifteen minutes after the pinging restarted on the computer, the mobile signal was still coming from the same place. That hopefully meant that Sherlock and the killer had stopped, rather than the phone being chucked out into the gutter along the way. My leg stiffened at the very idea, and I dismissed it from my mind quickly as I hauled the car seat down to the pavement outside.

"Taxi!" I shouted, waving the closed laptop in the air at every black car that passed, regardless of if it were a cab or not. Every second was another step toward a coffin, a life of isolation, going back to my tremor and limp, and I couldn't give that up. I refused to give it up. When a cab slowed for a traffic light I jumped into the backseat, met by a woman who seemed quite cross with me. Time to make something up, then. "Please, my baby's sick, it's an emergency," I begged her. It probably helped that my urgency and the cold weather made my voice hitch, because she got out after only another block, and paid my way as well. I didn't even thank her, too preoccupied with giving the cabbie directions.

"Weren' you goin' t'hospital, mate?" the bewildered man asked as I unbuckled my belt and the belt around Alex's seat.

I glanced up. "Uh, yeah, I lied," I told him frankly before leaping out.


	5. Chapter 5

The further education college had two buildings, on which the GPS signal was ambiguously placed. I picked the one on the right, hating that I had to go on a whim until I saw the cab sitting outside the building. Brilliant. I scanned the backseat, just to be certain, but there of course was no sign of Sherlock there. I couldn't decide if I was pleased or not, and let myself in through the unlocked front door.

Alex was heavy in his car seat, for such a small infant. I had to keep myself from shifting hands too much, so as to keep my gun at the ready at all times while also keeping an eye out for custodians. Lord knows I didn't want to accidentally shoot some poor bastard just for sneaking up on me. As I jogged through the corridors I swiveled my head from left to right, like some strange marionette, watching every room for signs of life, until finally I caught a glimpse of light. A glimpse of light from the building across the way, illuminating the room in which Sherlock was standing across the room from her alleged cabbie. There was a fiercely concentrated look on her pretty face, the same one she adopted when trying to discern what Alex needed to stop crying, as she pried open a bottle and held up the poison capsule.

This was it.

My heart pounded in my ears, but I was blissfully calm as I settled Alex in the farthest corner from the window and snuggled the fluffy black earmuffs over his potato-peel ears. He licked his lips and blinked sluggishly at me. I clapped my hands once, twice, three times, and the child didn't so much as flinch. I just hoped it wasn't because he was feeling dozy, and ran back to the window.

"_SHERLOCK!"_

She couldn't hear me, of course she couldn't hear me, I was at least eight meters away through two thick sheets of glass in the middle of London. Sherlock and the cabbie were in a deadlock, eyes trained on one another as he spoke softly, gently, to her, his eyes shining with hate and a perverse delight in what he was doing. They each had a pill.

My first thoughts went to arsenic. It could be arsenic, laced with something to make it difficult to trace. People could build resistances to arsenic poisoning, I'd heard about it before. A voice that sounded an awful lot like Sherlock's whispered "Obvious."

But it wasn't obvious to her. She really thought that she could win this, didn't she? Idiot.

There was nothing for it. I raised my arm without a second thought and fired, then ducked out of the window to where Alex had started bawling. Earmuffs or no, that had probably been loud for him, and I had to clear out as quickly as possible to avoid detection and hide my gun. Stowing the weapon safely back inside my waistband, I hefted Alex as quickly as possible and dashed out, barely missing discovery by alarmed and ornery custodial workers several times.

I went round the block and stowed the gun underneath a skip, covering the spot with the busted-off lid of a rubbish bin, and then flat-out ran down the street as far from the college as possible, wiping the powder burns from my fingers as best as I was able. Alex continued to cry, but in a more subdued manner with the car seat rocking as it were.

It was probably ten minutes before my breathing was back to normal, and I felt it was safe to make my appearance now that the police had shown up. Sherlock had been bundled into the back of an ambulance; she was fighting with Lestrade when I inconspicuously approached the crime scene tape hastily being put up. I couldn't fight a smile when she gestured wildly with the corner of the blanket that had been draped over her shoulders. I could see Anderson off to the side, snapping pictures with his phone and chortling to himself. Wanker.

Then Sherlock was suddenly at my side, pinning me down with her intense stare as I improvised a story. "Sergeant Donovan's just been telling me what happened," I lied quickly. "Two pills? Terrible business."

She leaned down toward me with the ghost of a smile on her pale face. "Good shot," she said quietly. I felt my heart jump into my throat, but didn't let my composure slip.

"Yes, it was a very good shot, I reckon," I nodded, feeling the heat trying to creep up my neck. "Must've been pretty-"

"John."

I stared at her. She stared right back.

"Are you okay?" I finally asked. "You're not hurt?"

Sherlock shook her head, loose strands of hair swinging free, softening her somehow. "Are you?" she countered. "You have just killed a man."

I thought about it for several moments. Was I okay? There was a man lying dead because of a bullet I shot. But he had been about to kill my friend. Well, flatmate, at least. And if Sherlock had died her son would have grown up without a mother. No kid deserved that. Not to mention I'd have been out of a place to live. "I have. But he wasn't a very nice man," I finally settled on, trying to keep my voice low.

Her smile brightened. "No," she agreed. "No he wasn't."

"Not to mention an awful cabbie."

"You're telling me; you should have _seen_ the route he took us on to get here."

Elation rushed my system. I was alive, Sherlock was alive, Alex was alive. Everything was going to work itself out somehow. I didn't even realize I was giggling until Sherlock joined in. "We can't giggle! It's a crime scene!" Sally Donovan passed and shot me a look of distaste. "Sorry, just...nerves, you know."

We had walked only a few steps when I asked, "You were going to take that damn pill, weren't you?" I had seen the look of focus on her face, the slight tremor of her free hand as the idea of death creeped closer and closer to those pretty white lips. I knew the face of an adrenaline junkie, and she'd been high as a kite on the euphoria. Probably still was.

"Of course not," she lied smoothly. "I was just biding time until you showed up."

"No, you weren't." There was no heat in my argument, just facts. "Know why that is?"

Amusement lingered in her voice. "Why?"

"Because you're an idiot."

An elbow collided with my ribs and I coughed, laughing quietly as Sherlock snatched the handle of Alex's car seat and we shared the weight. It was much easier on my arm. "You _were_ shot," she said out of the blue. "In the shoulder, the left shoulder."

"Lucky guess!"

"I never guess."

"Yes you do."

She smiled but didn't reply as a sleek black car - a very distinct sleek black car - pulled up and two very familiar people stepped out. I turned my head the other way. "Sherlock, that's the guy, the one I told you about earlier," I muttered, and the detective sighed.

"I know exactly who that is," she practically growled, stalking toward the taller man with shoulders hunched. I was still holding half of the car seat and was therefore pulled along behind her like a puppy on a leash.

The man I had met in the warehouse earlier that night looked just as impeccably spotless as he had hours ago, and smiled, snakelike, at Sherlock. "Another murder solved, I see," he said in his same posh voice that made my skin crawl. "How very public-spirited. Has it ever occurred to you that we should be on the same side?" he went on to ask. I could practically feel Sherlock tensing beside me.

"Oddly enough, _no_," she replied sarcastically, already beginning to pull me around and away, but the man was still talking.

"Sherlock, you're being childish," he insisted. "If you ever want to be taken seriously, you need to act like a grown woman, not gallivant around the city like a vagrant. Think of your son's well-being."

"I _am_ thinking about it!"

"Not enough, I'd wager." His voice, once light and very political, had hardened into something that I didn't like one bit. Sherlock apparently didn't either, as she shrank just a fraction of an inch beside me, holding the handle of the car seat in a white-knuckled grip. "Honestly, Sherlock, do you really think you can carry on like this? Solving crimes with a weeks-old infant in tow? Someone is going to find out, and use him against you. And you know how you would just upset Mummy _again_..."

My companion gasped angrily. "_I_ upset her? I'm not the one who upset her, Mycroft!"

I blinked confusedly. "Wait. Mummy?" I interjected. "Who's Mummy?"

"Mother," explained Sherlock through gritted teeth, over-bright eyes never leaving the other man's, "our mother."

Well, I certainly hadn't been expecting that one. "You're brother and sister? This really is childish feud? And you really do worry about her constantly?"

The man - Mycroft - blinked and frowned at me as though I were being ridiculous. "Yes, of course."

Before I could do more than nod dumbly, Sherlock had tugged on the car seat and pulled me in the other direction, away from the flashing lights and Mycroft Holmes. She was shaking with barely-suppressed anger, muttering curses under her breath.

"What was that?" I asked, still feeling a bit lost. "What did you two fight over?"

Stopping to lean against a wall, Sherlock relinquished control of the car seat to me and crossed her arms over her midsection. "He wanted to take Alex and raise him in a 'proper environment'," she said in a hard voice. "He said it would be better, that Alex would have a 'positive male influence' and would be away from..." She turned her head away. "...from me, and the dangerous life I tend to lead. You doubtlessly agree with him." Even as I tried to formulate some sort of response, she blanched. "God, I think I'm going to be sick."

I tentatively reached out a hand and put it on her back. "It's alright to be upset," I reasoned. "I mean, it's obvious you love Alex quite a lot, and your brother had no right to-"

Sherlock vomited into the icy slush at our feet, and even in the dark I could see signs of blood.

Shit.

Wrapping my arm around Sherlock's waist as she continued to gag and cough, I half-carried, half-dragged her to the lip of the alley. The ambulance from the crime scene was just packing up to leave, but I could see one dark figure heading toward a car in our general direction. "Lestrade!" I shouted, blood pumping at a mile a minute as Sherlock's thin hands closed around my jacket for support. "Lestrade, get the ambulance back!"

The DI barely hesitated before pulling out his radio. The ambulance, having started off, jerked to an abrupt halt and the paramedics poked their heads out, obviously bewildered.

"What's going on?" asked the older man as he came running. I thrust Alex's car seat into his arms and took on more of Sherlock's weight. She'd gone almost completely slack, trembling in my arms and leaning on my bad shoulder as she attempted to find her footing.

"I think she's got some internal bleeding," I explained, going into as little detail as I could about chasing the cab earlier and how badly Sherlock had taken to the stairs afterward.

Lestrade's eyes went wide. "And she was hiding it that whole time? Sherlock, you bloody-!" There was a petulant mewling sound from the region of my neck and shoulder. I was just relieved she was still conscious enough to tell Lestrade was about to call her an idiot.

"Come on, she's probably been bleeding for ages," I said with an admirably small measure of urgency in my voice, and Lestrade gestured the emergency crew to hurry up. I jostled Sherlock slightly to keep her awake; she hit me with about as much effect as if Alex were behind the fist. The paramedics were incredibly efficient, even if they were slightly baffled to how poison capsules and bullets could lead to internal bleeding. They quickly had Sherlock bundled up and curled on her side in an ambulance. Her eyes never closed, focused alternatively on me and on Alex's car seat.

As the ambulance closed and took off, Lestrade nudged my arm. "I can follow behind in a car, keep an eye on her," he offered, looking about as uncomfortable with the situation as I felt. What with the whole drugs bust earlier, I had a feeling the DI had a bit of a history with my new flatmate, and probably felt guilty about bullying her around when she was pretending not to be ill.

I shook my head. "No, I'll stay with her. Could I get a lift, though? I don't much fancy walking."

We crawled in to the DI's car - Lestrade strapped Alex in with the weary ease of a long-time father - and we trailed after the ambulance to the hospital, doubtlessly in for a long wait.

Surely enough it was a few hours before a nurse came out looking for Sherlock Holmes's family. Lestrade had been dropping off every five minutes or so, and I'd sent him on his way ages ago. I stood up, setting Alex's seat in my chair. "I'm her flatmate," I explained, voice cracked with exhaustion. It was really very late. "Her brother's unavailable." Alex started to whimper and squirm in his seat, and I apologetically turned away to tend to him. I'd had to beg a bottle off of another mum waiting for her husband about an hour before, and supposed that that he needed a burp or change.

The nurse, a weary young woman, smiled as I straightened back up, patting Alex absently on the back. "Sherlock did very well in surgery, we just had to put some new stitches in, but we're going to keep her a few days, watch out for infection, things like that. She's in her room resting now; I'm afraid visiting hours are over, but I could sneak you in to say goodbye if you wanted to." I thanked her with as much sincerity as I could muster; I know how unappreciated nurses often go, and her tremulous smile made me feel better.

"That would be really, very kind of you. Cheers."

She led me down a few corridors toward room 172, chatting as best she could with her own cracked voice all the while. "She was talking up a storm when we put her under. It was rather sweet; she kept asking if we couldn't just put Alex back while we were in there to begin with."

I laughed, already imagining Sherlock's face when I told her about that, but quickly sobered as we approached the room and I heard someone speaking all the way down the corridor.

"...one thing to be a bit more active than recommended at six weeks, but it's been _three_, Sherlock," said a man in a voice hot with irritation. "You've not been eating, not been sleeping, been _running_ up and down stairs, lifting heavy objects, and even jumping across bloody rooftops? Jesus Christ Sherlock, you're my _friend_, and your behavior over the last few years has _terrified me_. First it was the booze and partying to annoy your brother, then dropping out of uni without so much as a warning, then the bloody drugs - and now what? Chasing serial killers three weeks after having a C-section and ripping open your incisions.

"I'm telling you right now, Sherlock, that this death-seeking or thrill-seeking or whatever it is has to stop, if not for your own sake, then for your son's. If I see you in this hospital again for any reason other than an accident, I'm calling Social Services and won't let up until Alex has been taken somewhere _safe_. I don't want to bully you, but if that's what it takes to keep you alive, then I'm not sorry."

The doctor took a deep breath as the nurse and I approached the door, switching seamlessly into a gentler, more professional tone. "You're on bed rest for a few days, permitted to take short walks around the corridors _with help from a nurse._ No lifting anything heavier than your baby, and in the first few days you shouldn't hold him at all unless you're sitting down. When we release you, you'll need to have someone help you on stairs. Are you still living with your brother?"

Sherlock made a strangled noise that sounded very congested, but didn't speak. Anger flared in my chest and I stepped into the room. "She's got a flat with me," I said in my best military voice, staring the bastard doctor in the face. "John Watson. I'm her flatmate; and you are?" I held out my hand and squeezed the hell out of his.

"I'm Doctor Trevor, Sherlock's physician," replied the man, raising a challenging eyebrow at me, but not flinching or showing any sign of pain. I let him go and moved to Sherlock's side, smiling down at her. She stared at her pillow, curled over onto her left side with her hands tucked protectively under her chin. There was no doubting the wetness in her eyes. "I've just been having a chat with Sherlock about our course of action over the next few weeks. She's really set herself back in the recovery process, you see, and-"

"I do see," I interrupted without shame, keeping one hand on my flatmate's shoulder as I spoke. "I'm a doctor as well. In fact, I think I'd like to transfer Sherlock to my care, if you don't mind, _Doctor Trevor_.

The room was very quiet, the only sound the squeak of the nurse's trainers as she scooted from the room to find cover. "Listen," said Trevor after several tense moments, "I don't know what you heard, but anything I said to Sherlock was out of concern for herself and Alex, alright? No harm done, right Sherlock?"

She pinched her mouth shut and looked at me, pupils blown wide with pain medications. "I want John to be my doctor," she said quietly, voice rough and barely slurred as she rubbed at her face.

Even in the quiet I could feel Trevor seething. "Fine," he conceded. "From where are you practicing, Doctor Watson? I can send the necessary paperwork in the post."

"The post won't be needed; you can go and get it now, and I'll fill it out right here to make sure no one else comes in and shouts at my friend after she's not only just managed to save countless lives by catching a serial killer - sort of - but is also recovering from surgery." To prove my point, I sat down and waited, watching Trevor until he turned red and flitted out of the room. When I received the paperwork I needed, it was from Sherlock's nurse.

Sherlock watched me carefully as I filled out the form with practiced ease, her unfocused eyes still somehow managing to make me feel pinned down. I could feel them sweeping through every line in my skin, the strands of wool in my jumper, even raking through my short hair. I didn't look up from my work, wanting to get this whole messy affair over with and go to bed, but startled when her cool hand slipped around mine, stopping the pen.

"Thank you, John," she said softly, eyelids twitching in an effort to stay awake. "I've known Victor for a long time, and I know he meant well, but I..." She scrunched her eyes shut, and when she spoke again her voice was rough and watery. "Um, I seem to be experiencing a severe imbalance in hormones of late, so John, don't pay any attention if I..."

Her hand vanished from around mine to clap over her eyes as Sherlock started sniffling and swearing under her breath. I felt heat rise to my face; I'd never been able to handle crying women, not even when I was a kid. Mum used to cry a lot, which made Harry cry a lot, which made me feel like I'd done something wrong and leave the room. However, they were always crying for a reason. Sherlock was just sort of crying. It was somehow less daunting that doing so for emotional reasons.

Instead of panicking and leaving the room like I so very wanted to, I calmly pulled Alex from his car seat. "I know what'll help," I decided, placing the baby on the bed, sheltered in the curve made by Sherlock's body. As he nestled his way into the sheets, blithely kicking his feet, Sherlock slowly lowered her hand from still-streaming eyes to smooth down an errant tuft of black hair. I watched her watch her son, taking in every feature of his somber little face in the same way she had taken in the crime scene hours ago. I saw her memorize every detail, filing them safely away for later. It was easy to see that she'd only had him with her for a few days, going by the careful way her hands hovered around him - as though he'd break - and the look of wonderment on her face. I'd never seen anything so beautiful.

"You're gonna be fine," I told her gently. I had never wished I'd meant something more. "No one's going to take him away. I'll make sure of that, if you'll let me hang around."

Even doped up, crying, and half-asleep, Sherlock managed to muster up a smirk. "Please, John," she drowsily drawled. "You couldn't stand to be anywhere else."

Even if she was right, I couldn't let her have the satisfaction just yet. I huffed a laugh and looked away to see Mycroft's assistant in the corridor, sitting in a plastic chair and texting, occasionally snapping photos of us, probably for Mycroft. I seemed that the whole world had its eyes on Sherlock, waiting for the day she made another mistake and berate her for it. I turned back to say as much to the detective herself, but she and Alex had dropped into an easy and comfortable slumber. I settled back in my uncomfortable chair and watched over them. I didn't have to wait for that day to come - how many mistakes had she made just tonight? - but it didn't deter me in the slightest. I would take the battlefield, the risk, and all the stupid mistakes in the world if it meant I could make Sherlock Holmes just as good as she was great.


	6. Epilogue

I took Sherlock back to Baker Street after two days, grateful to get her out of that bloody hospital for several reasons: one, she was getting _bored, John!_ The second, her old friend Victor Trevor was really getting on my nerves. After his little tantrum on the first day he had tried time and time again to apologize. He would aim for the times whenever I wasn't in the room, usually at night. It made me feel good to know that he was a bit afraid of me, which Sherlock reported later, with a smirk.

Thirdly, Sherlock's brother, also, turned out to be a problem I wasn't a fan of, not only when Sherlock was in the hospital, but when we were home. After helping her wince her way up the stairs with Mrs. Hudson fussing around us in circles like some maternal bird of prey, the detective insisted on making me check every nook and cranny in the flat for bugs. I found four, and later, Sherlock managed to catch two more. Luckily, there didn't appear to be anything in the bathroom.

"He certainly has a wide reach, doesn't he?" I asked once we'd sufficiently destroyed everything and I'd got Sherlock to sit down, Alex settled in her lap to gum her - well, _my_ - jumper. She'd been dressing somewhat more comfortably than her suits during recovery.

She rolled her eyes grandly. "He's the British Government, when he's not busy being the British secret service or the CIA on a freelance basis. It's mind-numbingly annoying; I never get a moment of peace or privacy." Her eyebrows shot suddenly up when Alex gurgled and dribbled down his chin. "John, hand me a tissue."

I eyed her critically and she sighed; we'd already had to have a chat about how the next few weeks were going to go.

"_Please_ hand me a tissue."

Smiling with this little victory, I placed a tissue in her impatiently waiting hand so she could clean up her son's face. "Still, you and Mycroft must've been close at one point," I continued.

"Must we?" she absently replied, distracted by the apparent wonders of infant-spittle.

"I mean, before he had CCTV access. When you were a kid."

She seemed to think about this for a very long time. Toying with Alex's hands, I heard the softest catch in Sherlock's breath when he grabbed onto her little finger and squeezed. I still couldn't seem to grasp that mother and child had only been together about a week by this time, and they were still learning about one another.

From my place on the floor, back against the sofa, I gave her knee a squeeze. "How old is Alex, now?" I asked, forgetting about overprotective brothers for the time being.

Sherlock and Alex both looked at me - and I thought being pinned by just one set of those bright eyes was bad. "Turn around," she demanded, to my utter bewilderment.

"What?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Turn _around_, John."

There was a forced pitch to her voice that I could just barely detect, the smallest quiver, and something very telling in the way her eyes were crinkled in the corners. I nodded, slowly, and turned my back to let her say whatever it was she couldn't have me see in her face.

"He'll be at a month in a few days," she began in a carefully-measured voice, "but his mental and physical development is behind. They said at the hospital that it could take a while for him to catch up, but also that there's a chance that he might -" Her sentence came to an abrupt halt, but I didn't turn around, keeping my hand a steady pressure on her knee. I couldn't imagine what she was feeling - especially when she put forth so much energy pretending she didn't feel anything - but I had had a few patients over the years with premature babies of their own. I swear, they're superheroes in their own right, having to juggle both the worry and extra responsibility of having a baby before its time.

After a few minutes of quiet, when I knew it would be safe, I looked over my shoulder at Sherlock and Alex, seeing the way he was waving her little finger in the air, almost as if he were playing with it. "Can I try something with him?" I offered, feeling awkward and nervous.

Though she eyed me skeptically, Sherlock allowed me to raise Alex into my own arms. I tugged a blanket from behind her and placed it on the floor before laying the child down on his belly. Sherlock leaned forward, watchful as a hawk for anything that could harm her son. Ignoring my shoulder's weak protestations, I carefully dropped onto my stomach and settled my face beside Alex's. He blinked fuzzily at me, staring in the area of my eyebrows.

"Hey, handsome," I said softly, wriggling my fingers before Alex's eyes. He made a face that could probably turn into a smile in the coming months. "Look up here! Look at me!" I raised by eyebrows, and after several long moments the baby did the same. I furrowed and wrinkled my entire face - Sherlock made an amused humming sound - and Alex followed suit, a bit faster than before. I grinned; Alex drooled onto the carpet through his wide open mouth. Picking up my hand, I snapped my fingers while moving across his vision. Though a few moments behind, his head jerked at the sound and eyes roved around. I repeated the few little tricks I'd learned from old friends in med school before turning to my flatmate.

Sherlock seemed to realize what was going on when I looked up at her, beaming. "What's the diagnosis, Doctor?" she asked shrewdly, hugging a cushion to her midsection.

I sat up, rubbing Alex's back with one hand while he kicked and squirmed. "Well, I'm no pediatrician, but if I had to wager a guess, I'd say he's at about two weeks for motor skills. For being a month early, that's pretty amazing, Sherlock. It's just as I feared, having to live with _two_ brilliant overachievers."

There was a radiant shine in my flatmate's eyes as she studiously avoided mine, opting instead to watch Alex wobbling his head, trying to lift it for a few seconds at a time before giving up. She leaned down just far enough to brush the top of his head, hugging the pillow more tightly with her free hand. I eyed her. "It's fine, just a little stiff," she admitted under my scrutiny, turning pink around the shell of her ear.

"Do you want some paracetamol?"

She shook her head firmly. "No, paracetamol makes my fingernails itch." Just as I was about to furrow my brow and ask exactly how her brain worked, Alex's head dropped to the floor and he let out a wail. Had I blinked, I would have missed just how quickly Sherlock had abandoned her cushion and hunkered down to gather her son in her arms. She grimaces but didn't make a sound, even as I grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back onto the sofa with Alex now safely secured against her chest.

"Bloody hell Sherlock, no sofa diving three days after having surgery!"

"It's not my fault you upset him!" snapped Sherlock back at me, bouncing Alex lightly in her arms.

I gestured to the air around me, or perhaps the lack of things I had done to upset her child. "How on earth did I upset him? I was sitting here talking to you and he started crying. I hardly see how that's my fault."

"It just is!"

It wasn't exactly the best note to start what would be a three-hour effort to quiet Alex down. The poor thing just couldn't be comforted, squalling and shaking without pause as his mother rocked him, fed him, and checked his nappy about twenty times. A few times I even caught snatches of Sherlock signing to him, though they were mostly empty melodies, as though she would be playing it on her violin if she could hold both at once.

I took over for Sherlock after an hour, seeing the quiet desperation clawing at her eyes, and she instantly shoved her face into a pillow and let out a shriek of frustration. Christ, I didn't know which was worse, her or the baby. "Don't you have one of those What To Expect books?" I asked, trying to remain patient while she panicked.

Nodding and scrubbing fingers through her long hair, Sherlock went to the bookshelf and pulled down at least five books on infant-care. She huddled onto the sofa and opened them all to chapters on crying, scattered around her like a nest while I got up and paced the length of the flat, patting Alex on the bottom. Every few minutes Sherlock would call instructions to me.

"Hug him to your body and swing back and forth!"

"Hold his head in one hand and his bottom in the other and bounce with your knees."

"It says to make a shushing noise in his ear...to remind him of the sounds in the womb? That's ridiculous."

"This says that if you waltz with him against your chest it might help?"

"All of these books are utter rubbish! Every one of these authors should be burned alive!"

"What if he's got colic? Do you think it's colic? You're a doctor, say something!"

"John, what if he's dying!"

She had leaped to her feet on the last one, hair having long since fallen out of its tie and rather exploded everywhere in a curly mess. I sighed, never stopping my current motions to try soothing Alex, and wrapped my free arm around Sherlock's shoulders. She stiffened and squirmed, then slowly relaxed, putting her head on my shoulder. "He's not dying," I assured her, trying to fight a smile at how worried she was. "He's gonna be fine, he's just fussy. You need to _sleep_."

The hand that had been clutching my jumper pinched me.

"Oh, behave, Sherlock! Do I have to rock you too?" I muttered in her ear, wrapping my arm more securely around her and making very exaggerated movements from side to side. I could practically feel her rolling her eyes at me, but instead of pulling back like I expected she only burrowed further into the crook of my neck and shoulder. Alright then, looked like I had two fussy infants to look after now.

Shifting Alex slowly in my arm, I got him sequestered securely into the makeshift nest made by my and Sherlock's intertwined arms, then pulled my flatmate in even closer, until all the two of us were sharing the same air as the wailing infant. It was hot, sharing the small space with Sherlock and the veritable furnace of a baby, but comfortable. Sherlock and I held Alex together and swayed in time to music that wasn't there, though I could hear it in my head.

It was nearly half an hour before Alex calmed down, but Sherlock and I were locked in place, trapped to our own movements to make sure suddenly stopping wouldn't alarm the infant. She smelled like a hospital, and very faintly of baby powder underneath. Her jumper was soft under my hands, her head a warm weight on my good shoulder until she lifted it up and pressed her forehead to mine.

"Thank you, John," she said softly, and kissed me.

It was barely even a brush of her lips on mine, and didn't even last long enough for me to react or reciprocate; then her head was back on my shoulder and she was breathing slowly. My stomach flipped probably three somersaults and a cartwheel or two.

"What about being married to your work?" I asked cautiously.

She laughed quietly, barely even a hum in the back of her throat. "Consider us to be on a break for the time being."

I grinned at the wall and splayed my hand more boldly across the plane of Sherlock's back, brushing my thumb across the nape of her neck and through those wild black locks. Then I blinked, realization coming in. If she and her work were "on a break," as she said, did that mean she would go back to being strictly married to it once she was well again?

Alex yawned hugely in the crest between myself and his mother and latched his mouth around a bit of cable-knit in my jumper. Warmth and unexpected happiness flooded my chest, and I figured that I would roll with the punches and see where that took me.


End file.
